One of the goals I have with dmiracle.com (formerly HealthyWebDesign.com) is creating conversation around interesting and helpful topics. It’s dear to my heart that this be a wide, four-lane double highway where I write about a topic; you share you thoughts, feelings, experiences, etc; I comment back and the conversation begins.
Well, recently I crossed 750 comments on my blog. Not bad, I feel, for less than 3 months blogging.
For a while, I’ve been looking at this milestone as an opportunity to thank each of my commenters with a little link love. But I’ve had more than 70 of you comment on my blog. That would make a long, boring list of links, and serve little purpose to you, my readers.
And, since I’ve dropped the rel=nofollow attribute from all outgoing links in the comments, you’re getting link love each and every time you share in the conversation.
There have been some great conversations here in the past few weeks. That got me thinking, since my goal with dmiracle.com IS conversation, why don’t we keep some of the really good ones going?
So what I’ve done is listed 6 of the richest conversations that have happened on dmiracle.com in the past month or so. Each of these are on topics I, personally, want to continue to talk about. I’d like to hear your thoughts, ideas, perspectives, questions, suggestions around these. Most importantly, I want to learn from you. So please, join back in the conversation.
- 5 Things Marketing Gurus Need to Learn From Bloggers
- Is It True, No One Cares About Your Blog?
- Why Do You Think Small Businesses Need To Be Blogging?
- Do You Brand Yourself in Your Blog Comments?
And on a topic that’s dear to my heart, making blogs more accessible to new and non bloggers, here’s two posts…
- Bloggers, Are We Just Blogging To The Choir?
- Keep the Door Open to New & Non Bloggers, Join in the Conversation
So, what do you have to add to the conversation?
Dawud,
It’s great to see a lot of smart bloggers taking this step and removing the foolish “No Follow” links. It seems to me that back in the early days setting “no follow” developed as a practice to try to avoid spammy comments … but goodness knows it didn’t work at that chore.
Is there an easy way for the average “non-pro” to control these setting or even tell is s/he has them set on their blog?
Randa,
Really, the thanks is due to you because it’s your and others comments that have made my blog successful. So thank you.
I’m enjoying blogging very much – more than doing my work. More is to come, so stay tuned.
Dave,
I agree. Andy Beard has been running a campaign to encourage bloggers to drop the no-follow.
You’re using WordPress, right? I suggest using Dofollow works great. Upload the plugin, activate it and you’re set.
Thanks, should have thought of Denis’s library first … he has given a lot to the community … the semilogic theme, even in the free version can do very well.
Plug in installed, we should be following now. All we need is for the movement to spread and we can get back to where the idea of blogging originated … sharing.
Congratulations on your blogging success so far Dawud. I think you’re doing an outstanding job of stimulating really interesting discussion. I’m planning on taking off the nofollow on randaclay.com as well, following your excellent example.
Soaping Your Blog 😉
Hello David,
I am hereby soaping your blog.
First Impression
—————–
Oh wow! A very nice site with great layout! I really like the fact that you have the introduction on top of the posts. This makes it easy to figure out what the blog is about.
I also like your language and writing style.
After scanning a couple of posts you have converted me to a returning reader. Very interesting subjects (I am definitely your target audience).
A couple of things I miss when scanning the first page are testimonials of your services – what does your design clients thing of your services and references to clients you have worked with.
About Driving Traffic
———————-
Your Alexa score is about 1M which I find strange with so many responses to your posts.
I am sure you have a pretty good feel for traffic driving tactics, but if you are not working with the following I would suggest you add it:
1) Press releases
2) Work on getting back links to get your PR up to 4.
3) Pings, although I am assuming you have already done this.
4) Long tail keywords, for example in your categories. Getting high ranking for “email marketing” is a pretty difficult task
5) I would add an image of the special report to increase downloads of the “keyword myth”. I also assume you are sending updates to the downloaders of that report.
Copywriting/Headline tips
—————————-
Not being a copywriter myself I don’t have much suggestions.
I do find your post titles a little bit “wordy” sometimes. For example:
“Maybe the best google video ever?”, why not: “The best google video ever?”
“Hey Google, Follow Me: Giving More Link Love” –> “Time For Link Love” or something.
Converting readers to clients
——————————-
– Offer testimonials
– Offer client list
– How has the 25 minutes consultation worked? If it isn’t getting you any calls I would remove it, if you have 25 minutes over it tells me you aren’t very busy = not in high demand
– Are you sending regurly to your list? Otherwise do.
I think that was it. Consider yourself soaped 🙂
Peter Gillberg
http://www.SoftwareCasa.com
http://www.SoftwareMarketingSecrets.com
Hi Dawud
Congrats! 750 comments, boy that’s great!
But on no-follow, don’t want to be a party pooper, but this is what I still see in emails follow-ups and on the page-source:
xhref=http://andybeard.eu/2007/02/ultimate-list-of-dofollow-
plugins-banish-nofollow-from-comments-and-trackbacks.html
rel=nofollow
(removed the “‘s and >’s to make sure it doesn’t converse back into a link
Dave,
Happy to help.
Peter,
Thanks for the SOAPing. I briefly read your comments this morning and will do more in depth later this afternoon.
Karin H.,
Interesting…I removed nofollow from the source code of WP. What I didn’t catch was the plugin that I’ve used for “Quote Me.” It contains a nofollow also. I wouldn’t have caught that if you hadn’t brought it to my attention. Gone now. Thank you.
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Happy to help.
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😉
I haven’t looked into the exact way the plugins work, but maybe they hook the contents of a comment after it is prepared for being output.
All links in my email subscriptions always contain nofollow, but they appear correctly on the blog, which is what counts.
It is just the way DoFollow works